Gtalkr : Google Talk on Web Based Interface

Brad at the Unofficial Google Weblog points to Gtalkr, a web based Google Talk interface which “fills in some of the missing pieces of the desktop Google Talk, such as conversation searching, and starring as in Gmail.” Gtalkr runs using Macromedia Flash 8 and offers tools such as a map based geographic locator (powered by Yahoo Maps), search, and user profile images which Google does not offer with its normal Google Talk offering.

Gtalkr, to the best of my knowledge, is the first developer based Google Talk API driven application to gain popular notice among Google Talk users. Brian Benzinger of Solution Watch has a nice review and screenshots of GTalkr:

The interface is a clean, has lots of gradients, but in my opinion is a little cluttered looking. You will see your contact list on the left. You can see online and offline contacts, search through them, and even invite anyone to get a Gmail account and use Gtalkr. On the right you will see collapsible areas for recently received email, invitations, and an extension area which allows you to view Yahoo Maps (Yes, Yahoo Maps on a Google client), create Todo Lists, buddy signon notifications, and you can even use the Gtalkr API to create your own. There is also a great feature called, Chat Inbox, which allows you to search through any conversation that you have had using Gtalkr. It does store your conversations, but as Om Malik has pointed out, it shouldn’t worry you too much as most clients do this as well. There are also some additional features to help you with your searching, such as filtering by contact name, adding of labels to conversations and even starring conversation to show importance.

I’m setting up my Gtalkr interface right now as I’m slowly making the switch over to Google Talk for some of my messaging needs. Due to demand of the Gtalkr service, the login is taking a bit of a long time, so I’ll probably post a follow up on my own experiences with Gtalkr at some other date.